I love to laugh (loudly), cook, drink good beer, run long distances, hang out with my family (4 boys!) and friends and read novels. More than anything, I love to sit with people and have meaningful conversations.
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On Pain and Rising

“That’s the thing about truth and God: They will set you free but they’ll hurt like hell first. First the pain, then the rising. First the pain, then the rising — again and again forever.”

Glennon Doyle Melton, Facebook Wall Post, 5/7/16

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The other night, we had a couple friends over. The occasion was simply that we’ve been busy and hadn’t gotten together in a while, and they said they missed us. And our schedules aligned, which made it a good occasion to set up the deck furniture and grill the first pizzas of the year.

Late into the evening, we were sitting out under the stars playing cards, and I was chilly and went inside to grab a sweatshirt out of my closet. And when I saw myself in the full-length mirror, I realized I had never styled my hair after my shower, shortly before they arrived.

I’m a vain man. I had stupid hair all night long. I looked like an unkempt Caesar. (Anyone remember when that was actually a style? Back in the ‘90s sometime?)

I put on a hat. Then I chastised my friends because “friends don’t let friends have stupid hair!”

We all had a laugh. It’s just hair. And good friends with whom I don’t really care if I have stupid hair. And it was easily remedied with a hat.

But there are other truths that hurt. There are painful truths that we need to learn about ourselves that will cause us to grieve and mourn and regret so we can learn and rise strong.

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Initially the challenge is to become aware. Sometimes awareness comes to us whether we like it or not. Our boss gives us a performance review, our spouse lets us know how we failed, we make a mistake, we lose our company money. Sometimes the pain of truth seeks us out like a heat-seeking missile.

But, more often, we have to lean into truth. We have to seek it out. We have to choose to be open to truth, curious about ourselves and our interaction with the world around us.

I was golfing earlier this week with someone who is a much, much better golfer than I. In fact I’ve never played a round of golf with someone as good as this guy. And after shanking another drive (common to my golf “game”) I asked him, “do you see anything obvious?” He mentioned that I needed to bend my knees more. I crushed the next couple of drives.

Sometimes, in the safest places, with people who are gentle with us, we need to seek out the truth, even if it might cause us some pain.

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A couple weeks ago two of my boys were cleaning up the kitchen and arguing the whole time. And I was annoyed with the tone they were using with each other.

So I barked at them.

And Jennifer, walking by, said, “They’re just speaking to each other the way we speak to them sometimes when we’re irritated.”

Ouch.

The thing is, once we arrive at truth, we have a choice. We can ignore it, bury it and to the best of our ability never face it again. Or, like Glennon Doyle Melton, we can numb it with alcohol, food, people — whatever we use to avoid dealing with our truth.

Or we can use it to transform us. We can rise. I can put on a hat, change my golf swing, change the way I speak to my boys.

“Universal Inner Work insight: Once we understand the nature of our personality’s mechanisms, we begin to have a choice about identifying with them or not. If we are not aware of them, clearly no choice is possible.”

Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson, The Wisdom of the Enneagram, 38

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“That’s the thing about truth and God: They will set you free but they’ll hurt like hell first. First the pain, then the rising. First the pain, then the rising — again and again forever.”